Hospital says vote is attack by union

Evanston proposal challenges center's tax-exempt status

March 12, 2005|By Sean D. Hamill, Special to the Tribune.

An advisory referendum measure challenging St. Francis Hospital's tax-exempt status is a "misleading and malicious attack" that could cripple the Evanston health center, according to a hospital official.

But at a recent forum, a representative from the union promoting the referendum said the hospital doesn't give enough free care to poor people.

The hospital's warning that it might have to close programs "is a scare tactic," said Jo Patton, director of special projects for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31.

Sherlyn Hailstone, the hospital's chief executive officer, said the union is trying to pressure St. Francis to allow it to unionize its employees.

"I think this [referendum] has very little to do about care for the poor and more to do with what's good for the union," Hailstone said.

After failing last year in a direct legal challenge to the tax-exempt status of Resurrection Health Care, which owns St. Francis, the union collected more than 4,000 signatures to put the advisory measure on the April 5 ballot.

The proposal asks the Cook County assessor to review St. Francis and Resurrection's tax-exempt status "if it is determined that the health-care corporation does not meet the standards for these exemptions due to failure to provide adequate charity care and for lawsuits against indigent debtors."

About 100 people attended a forum on the issue Thursday.

The hospital has not reduced the amount it devotes to charity cases, spending $21 million a year on average over the last three years, Hailstone said.